How to Kill an Incubus: A Rae Erickson Story (36 page)

Ren was babbling, a sure sign that she was nervous. I felt like I didn’t know how to breathe anymore. Her words were playing on a loop in my head like a broken CD.

Six weeks… Twins… Six weeks… Twins… Six weeks…

My mind was still fuzzy but conscious enough to do quick mental calculations. If that was the truth, the babies were conceived the night Andrei came back after leaving me hanging following his torturous foreplay. The night before I went to look for JP without Temp. The night before Damien let me know just what was going on in the basement of his club.

“But I had my period after,” I said monotonously.

Ren was so in sync with me that she knew exactly what I was referring to. She scoffed. “Remember in high school, how we said that sperm can live in our bodies longer than we can last in the wild? That’s three days of potential fertilization,” she stated matter-of-factly. “You were probably just spotting.” Her face softened at my horrified expression. “Blood tests don’t lie, babe. And I know you’ve been through hell but do you… do you know who the father is?”

“Ah, Ms. Erickson, welcome back to the land of the living.” The doctor breezed into the suddenly-claustrophobic room, saving me from answering Ren, but I barely registered his face. Shell-shocked, I think that was it. “Mrs. Marino, if you’d step out of the room for a little while…”

“Mrs. Marino? Don’t even,” Renée scolded him. “We went to school together, Zach. You wet your pants in third grade when Mindy Turner asked you for a Crayola.” She received a dirty look from—now that she mentioned it—Dr. Sheppard. “All right, all right. I’m going.” She paused at the doorway. “By the way, there’s an Adonis outside waiting to see you, babe.”

My head cleared. Barely. “You met my brother, huh?” I mumbled.

“Your what?”

I winced. So this was the one time Temp hadn’t pulled the brother card. I shuddered to think about the interrogation he was about to get from my best friend. She bolted out the door to presumably do just that.

Dr. Sheppard and I were alone now. I didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. I couldn’t. It was one thing hearing it from Renée, but there was no way I could pretend it was a mistake if it came out of a doctor’s mouth.

“Hey, Rainelle,” he said gently, scooping up my chart at the foot of the bed as he made his way to my side. “Despite urinating on myself when I was eight, I am more than capable to be your doctor.”

The smile on my face was forced and it hurt.

He flashed me a real one. “I’m sure Renée filled you in but…”

I listened to his detailed description of my injuries with half an ear while he removed my catheter lines. I didn’t care about the broken ribs, or the concussion, or the almost-dislocated shoulder, or the various bumps and bruises I would have to tolerate for a couple more days. Only when he got to the part about “the healthy fetuses” did I pay attention.

“…and everything looks good. There was a bit of trauma to your abdomen and truthfully, we are all in awe of these babies. They shouldn’t have survived, but they did. They have a very resilient mother.”

“And I’m six weeks along?” I asked dazedly.

“You had no idea.” It wasn’t a question.

“But… I had my period,” I murmured stupidly. And again, I sounded like a broken record.

“It’s not unusual to experience vaginal bleeding during pregnancy,” Zach said gently, glancing down at the clipboard in his hand, “but since you’re in the early stages, it’s safe to say that it was what we call implantation bleeding. The twins are perfectly fine, despite the trauma you all sustained. I’d like to monitor you here for a day or two though, just to be safe. I’m glad you woke up when you did, Rainelle.”

The rest of his monologue went over my head, and then he was gone, with promises of sending a nurse in with lunch.

Pregnant.

Me.

With Andrei’s babies.

With a demon king’s babies.

The past few weeks made sense now. The weight gain I’d attributed to too much good food. The constant nausea even when I wasn’t around demons. My hormones in overdrive.
Bacon turning my stomach…

The door was pushed open and Temp strode inside, closing it behind him. The clicking sound it made snapped me out of my panicked rumination.

“So yeah, your friend just tried to molest me and I wasn’t even putting on the charm,” he complained, looking like he’d just strolled out of a
GQ
magazine in a polo shirt and slacks. “Hope you don’t mind but I had to charm her away when she started asking about us.” His eyes widened when he managed a good look at me. “Ho-lee-fucking-shit!”

“That bad, huh?”

“Worse.” He crumpled into the chair Renée had vacated only moments before, his eyes scanning me with heavy concern. “They said you turned the guy’s brain into scrambled eggs. If he were still alive, I would’ve done it for you and laughed while doing it.”

The image of Daniel’s body on that concrete floor flashed behind my eyelids. I shook it away. But I knew it would be back.

“No?” said Temp, mistaking my headshake for a negative. “He hurt you, Rae. Could’ve killed you. Nearly did. I would’ve…”

“I’m pregnant.”

Temp’s jaw dropped, hanging there like a drawbridge. The sight would have been funny but there was really nothing to laugh about. I didn’t think there would be ever again.

Temp was finally able to close his mouth and offered an uncertain “That’s… great?”

I let out a bitter laugh, breaking down on the pillows. “Yes. Great. Every single one of Andrei’s sperm cells probably wore an ‘S’ on their tiny little chests because I know I took the pill every day.” I paused, deliberating. “Okay, maybe not every day. I might have missed one or two days but… God, Temp, this can’t be happening. It can’t be. Two babies? I… can’t.”

He cleared his throat. “Rae… you do know that contraceptives do jack shit when it comes to killing a demon’s sperm, right?” he mumbled, suddenly very interested in the floor. “The only sure-fire way is charmed birth control, which you can get from a witch, or a condom.”

“Excuse me?”

He looked up at me. “If an incubus doesn’t want to impregnate someone, which, by the way, is very rare since we’re all arrogant little shits, he’ll make a conscious effort to shoot blanks. Unbelievable… but true.” Temp paused.  “Andrei might just have… forgotten one time,” he finished lamely.

I stared at him for a moment, feeling yet another wave of panic threatening to overwhelm me. “So you’re telling me the whole time I was swallowing that goddamned pill, I might as well have been swallowing a jellybean for all the good it did me?”

“I thought you knew this stuff. I mean, didn’t you understand what you were getting yourself into by going steady with an incubus?”

“No one told me this!” I snapped. My head was beginning to pound. The dull ache in my chest was building up to a sharp pain. I was going to make myself fall apart.

“Rae, calm down,” Temp chided. “You don’t want to give yourself high blood pressure, do you? It’s not good for the…”

“The babies?” The word was an acquired taste on my tongue. Mixed emotions swirled inside my chest.
What am I supposed to be feeling right now? Joy? Apprehension? Anger?
My eyes strayed down my body.

Beneath my hospital gown, beneath the bruises that I was sure peppered my belly, there were—not one, but two—babies. Each one half of me, and half of Andrei.

Half-human. Half-demon
.

I gingerly splayed my fingers over my stomach and let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Then the psychotic laughter started up, which was a veritable torture to my ribs. They still hurt like hell but that didn’t stop me. No, this laughter was an unstoppable force.

My demon boyfriend had forgotten to shoot blanks. How ridiculous was that? When he came inside me, the birth control I had been taking religiously—oh, the irony—was useless in the face of his bionic sperm, and now I was having his twins. I knew squat about kids and now I would have the pleasure of having two (two cambions, no less!) at the same time? What else could I do but laugh?

“Rae, stop laughing. You’re hurting yourself.”

Tears flooded my eyes, both from the pain and from the reality of the situation. I couldn’t stop laughing, despite how much it hurt. “Oh, God, Temp. Don’t you see how hilarious this is?” I sputtered, clutching my painful sides. “Forgot to shoot blanks? Forgot? In this world, being sterile is embarrassing. Many guys leave the doctor’s room in tears because of it. And incubi can turn it on and off like a tap? Sperm faucets!” I choked on my laughter, and the choking morphed into sobbing.

Temp was at my side in seconds, holding a new cup of water to my mouth. I could barely latch on to the straw to drink through my uncontrollable sobs. So Temp set the cup down and tentatively wrapped his arms around me. I let myself break apart in his embrace, dribbling and sniveling into his shirt.

“I’m here for you, Baby Phat.” Temp’s voice rumbled in his chest, the vibrations tickling my cheek. “You’ll be fine. I’m Nanny McPhee with kids. But with great highlights and a dick.”

I snorted with laughter. He slowly released me, looking at me with intense chocolate eyes. “I’m serious. I’m here for you. We’re… family.” His fingers intertwined with mine and squeezed my hand.

“I know,” I whispered, squeezing back.

His eyes became more sober. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

I shut my eyes. “I can’t take any more bombshells, Temp. Please. Not now.” But every time I closed my eyes, I saw Andrei’s face and my heart clenched. Then I saw Daniel’s—the mangled, raw flesh that was left of him. Those images made me sick.

“I know. And I’m sorry. But you need to know this.” He took a deep breath. “Andrei destroyed Nicolette and Damien is likely coming after you.”

My eyes flew open. “Destroyed the club?”

“For you. He saved those girls,” Temp relayed slowly. “Of course, Damien took it personally. They were his toys. And what happens when you take away a kid’s toys? He gets mad. And then he finds something new to play with.”

“Me,” I said numbly.

“You,” he confirmed.

An elderly nurse chose that exact moment to barge into the room, pushing in a trolley of food. She gave Temp a severe look. “I’m sorry, sir, but visiting hours are over. It’s time for the patient to eat.”

I held fast to Temp, refusing to release his hand. I didn’t want to be alone just then. He looked down at me, smiling in understanding. Then he fixed the woman with a different kind of smile, the kind that wouldn’t fail to disintegrate her panties.

“Yeah, but you can make an exception for me, can’t you, sweetheart?”

The nurse practically swooned. “O-of course. Take your time.”

“Thank you, darling. You can go now.”

So Temp stayed through lunch, tapping away at his iPhone.

During lunch, I forced myself to eat. Yes, hospital food was the worst, and under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have done so much as sniff it. But I was eating for three now.

With Temp fully occupied, I was forced to be in my own head. I had no idea what I was going to do. The only thing I was absolutely sure of was that I was going to go through with the pregnancy. Abortion had only crossed my mind for a millisecond and then I’d squashed the idea immediately. Despite how scared out of my fucking mind I was, killing innocent babies was too horrific to even really consider.

But how long will they be innocent? They’re half-demon. Half-evil. Half-unnatural.

My eyes strayed to Temp, whose blond head was bent over his phone. He was a cambion, a halfling. He was my brother. He was normal. And he had what most demons couldn’t even begin to fake: humanity.

But there was so much I couldn’t even begin to grasp about cambions. Would they grow up like normal kids? Would they be screwing around by the time they hit kindergarten?
Would they kill?

My appetite fled. I pushed the tray aside, and with great effort, kicked the covers off.

Temp’s head shot up. “Where d’you think you’re going?”  

“The bathroom,” I muttered, bracing a hand on either side as I heaved myself off the bed.

Temp was before me in a flash, helping me to my feet.